Ed Miliband to head new climate change department

Ed Miliband has become the secretary of state at a new energy and climate change department.

The former Cabinet Office minister takes on his new role as part of Gordon Brown's first reshuffle.

The new department will take over the energy brief from the Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform and the climate change portfolio from the Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs.

Hilary Benn is set to retain his cabinet position, but heading up a smaller department responsible for food, farming and countryside issues.

The change means that for the first time energy and environment policy will fall within the same Whitehall ministry, with the objective of ending damaging turf wars and tensions between the two.

Miliband will also inherit a full in-tray, including plans to press ahead with a new generation of nuclear power stations, and a decision looming over whether to build a new coal-powered station at Kingsnorth in Kent.

Environmental campaigners welcomed news of the new department. WWF-UK campaigns director David Norman said: "It shows a clear recognition that the UK's chances of hitting its climate targets are inextricably linked to its energy policies.

"It is therefore vital that Ed Miliband's first action as head of this department is to overrule any plans to build new unabated coal-fired power stations, and instead ensure that the UK wholeheartedly delivers on its energy efficiency and renewable energy targets."

And Green Alliance director Stephen Hale said the change was "not before time".

"Ed Miliband's in-tray is piled high with issues that the old structure did not resolve," he said. "The new department puts climate change where it belongs, with its own seat at the cabinet table."

Immigration minister Liam Byrne has been promoted to Miliband's old job at the Cabinet Office.